


Afterparty

by applecameron



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Depression (implied), M/M, anxiety (implied)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 14:23:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4709222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applecameron/pseuds/applecameron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The post-job drill is go to ground and rest for a week.  This is not the usual post-job drill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Afterparty

Arthur arrives at his destination only after hopping a shuttle from LAX to San Jose and a bus to Sacramento, then more hours riding around Sacramento Regional Transit. The entire time from plane to bus to more buses he is changing his look, from three piece suit and expensive shoes to losing the jacket and watch and wearing green-tinted sunglasses and body language that scream hipster, then dropping the waistcoat and belt in favor of an untucked shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a newsboy cap. One of the last changes involves a pair of black slacks and cheaper shoes that transform him completely from sleek professional to either waitstaff or security gone off-shift and heading home to crash. 

Crashing is the plan, so that much is true. He nudges into his little safe house apartment, drops the duffle disguising his garment bag, checks the locks, the traps, everything still in place and working order, and tosses his final purchases - cheap sunglasses, bananas, bottled water - on the nightstand. 

Eats one banana, chugs water. Closes his eyes for the first time in what feels like forever, and falls asleep. 

Repeat as long as necessary. That's the drill coming off a job. Go to safe house, sleep off all those weeks or months of strain. Eat a lot of bananas. Potassium: it's good for you. It usually takes about a week for him to come back to life, shut down the safe house, and move on to the next job, or at least, next venue. 

He is not aware that this first marathon bout of restorative sleep lasts three days and the next nearly as long. Just wakes terribly thirsty both times. At some point more days later he strolls slowly towards the closest bodega for more bananas, more water. Considers some microwave burritos but simply isn't hungry. Buys a loaf of bread and puts it in the refrigerator. 

He's aware on some level that he doesn't eat enough, but thirst - for sleep - is the dominant force in his life now. 

He pays cash, always fives and tens, or smaller, staying in role. Then shuffles back, consumes, sleeps. 

Repeat. He does not know how many days, weeks, have passed. If anyone wants him, they can call. The feeling of so much weight lifted suddenly from his shoulders is paradoxically crushing, at one point he wakes with tears on his face. He stays awake for a couple hours that time, compulsively checking the locks, the traps, the view out the window. 

The next time he wakes, from some deep place inside that leaves him wondering where and who he is, it's because a very familiar voice called him darling, and told him to wake up for a moment and prove he wasn't dead. There is a hand on his shoulder and that hand, too, is familiar. 

He knows it's safe because it's Eames. Eames might betray him someday but only ever from afar. Through a scope, maybe, or in a corporate boardroom, but never to his face. Because Eames knows what most big men don't - that the small learn to be truly vicious, and it's Arthur who'll win in a fight between them. 

He doesn't roll over. Too tired. Mumbles something intended to be either "Eames" or "not dead" or both. 

"Arthur. Please." 

It's the 'please' that focuses his attention. He puts his hand over the one on his shoulder and tugs. A weight lands on the bed, settling around him, and he pulls the hand into a comfortable position under his chin, completely uncaring that Eames might have his shoes on the bed, the style-deficient heathen. 

"Are you ill?" Tries to feel his brow, cheek, for a fever. Touches him elsewhere, for assurance he is not bleeding to death slowly, or dying of sepsis. Presses for his pulse. 

Arthur hears the inquiry but he's almost fully asleep again by that point. He mumbles again, this time intending to say "just sleeping off the job." Whether it's successful, he can't say. Too busy sleeping. 

He rouses enough later to notice that weight leaving the bed for a moment and then returning, sans jacket and shirt, belt, and free of shoes. Eames puts his arm over him and holds them both still until Arthur sleeps again. 

He wakes Eames up, later. Finally rolling over to face him, kicking him in the process. "Sorry, were you asleep?" He falls back, still exhausted. Like all the sleep in the world will not lift this lethargy. "Ugh." 

"Arthur." He likes the way Eames says his name, as a statement of fact, indisputable. "Are you all right?" Eames really does look worried. He's still stripped down to slacks and undershirt, his watch on the nightstand behind his head, next to his coiled belt. 

"Sleeping off the job." 

Then Eames tells him the date and he achieves enough wakefulness to feel surprise. 

"Your phone's died. I plugged it in and called Cobb, told him you yet draw breath." 

Arthur nods. "Good." Even this small conversation is draining. Lifts a hand to touch Eames' lips. On an unnamed impulse he follows with his own lips. "Thank you." Mostly chaste, too tired for more. But the promise is there. "For looking for me." Eames kisses him back, gently, as if they kissed every day. 

It's been nearly a month of nothing but sleep, and he can feel the reservoirs of his mind and body are still so very empty. 

The next time he wakes he feels human enough to get out of bed, but clumsy, like some part of him is still asleep. Not uncommon when sleeping off job lag, for him. He brushes his teeth without the light on in the bathroom, then heads to the living room. Eames is dressed to mimic the average middle-class Sacramento man on a day off, sitting on the sofa, with a book in his hand, something Italian, and a dishtowel wrapped around a teapot in lieu of a cozy. Two mugs stand waiting, and a little container of milk in attendance by a couple of plates and a small lemony pound cake marked with a logo he's only ever seen in Sacramento, some local bakery that all the bodegas here carry. Very good. 

"When did you go out?" Arthur tightens his robe about him even though it's a warm day and sits opposite, in the tatty chair, as Eames folds the book in his hand and places it carefully to the side. 

"Just now. You'd no milk." 

They sit in silence for a while, Eames clearly studying him, but somehow not intrusively. "Tea?" 

"Lovely." 

Eames pours, offers the mug, then tends his own. 

"You've lost weight, Arthur." 

"Too busy sleeping." The tea is good. Hot, cleansing, comforting with the dash of milk. "Not enough time to eat." 

"If I cook, will you eat?" 

"I'm not sick, Eames. I don't need cosseting." 

"Do you do this after every job? Sleep for a month and starve yourself in the process?" 

He barks laughter without meaning to. "The latter wasn't on purpose. I never sleep properly on the job, so, yes." Trust Eames to know how to make a top-notch pot of tea. He salutes him with the mug. "This is my afterparty. Cheers." 

Eames has a lovely, smirky smile and Arthur flushes, suddenly, remembering the kissing earlier. 

"Cheers, pet. And I intend to enjoy cosseting you for a while." He reaches for a plate. "Cake, I think, to start?" 

====

Eames makes no demands other than that he eat and drink, carries him back to bed at least once during the next month when he passes out on the sofa - "purely to save your neck from a chiropractor, darling" - doesn't tease him about the occasional drooling on his pillow, and sticks to simple flavors and local fruits. Checks on him when in the tub to ensure he doesn't fall asleep and drown, which is all to the good, because Arthur very nearly does the first time he tries a bath. 

Makes gnocchi for him one day, whilst an apron clearly purchased from another nearby store covers up his clothes from the flour. 

Penetrates the mysteries of microwave-in-a-mug brownies with a minor soliloquy on the merits of microwave cooking baked desserts during summer months in California. "Terribly clever, darling. Terribly clever." 

When he wakes up crying, which happens at least twice more, Eames holds him until the tears ease, stroking his back until he falls asleep again. Kisses his head, though he might have imagined that. 

It's all quite…comfortable, having Eames cosset him and watch over his sleep. Two toothbrushes in the bathroom. Additional linens appearing magically. Heavens, _laundry_. 

One night he wakes up and can't stop talking, telling Eames what it's been like, carrying Dom all this time. He loves Dom, Dom is family, he could never abandon him in his moment of need. But he never felt he was off the job the entire time since Mal died. All the months piled on top of months bleeding into more months of needing to not let Dom down. To be the rock he braced against, the one sure thing in his life, in addition to point man on the job, a function that they both knew was grueling on its own. That toward the end he felt he had to hold on even tighter, to be perfect, with so much at stake. That sometimes he'd wake up shaking in the middle of the night, unable to make himself stop, well before this attempt at inception. 

Confesses he feels unbalanced now, staggering about in the sun like a man who'd been in a cave, emerging now to be struck dumb by all the light. 

He kisses Eames that night, asking him for more in that bed than being held. Lets himself be stroked gently, "cosseting, darling, remember", with soft laughs, soft lips, endless explorations. So easy. So sweet. Learns the taste of Eames' pleasure. Lets him in. After so long, lets him in, thank God, and later, falls asleep on his chest. 


End file.
